A Definitive Ranking of Fast-Food French Fries

Never trust anyone who doesn’t order fries at a fast-food restaurant. Either they’re on a diet—and everyone knows you can’t trust people who diet—or they don't fundamentally understand how to extract joy from life.

You can get a better burger, better chicken sandwich, better taco (looking at you real hard, Jack in the Box) anywhere else, but through some combination of science and magic, fast-food joints manage to put out the best fries in the world. I don’t care how many years that Belgian street-cart owner has been cutting potatoes by hand, because he can’t hold a candle to the stoned 16-year-old in a paper hat using an industrial-sized funnel to throw previously frozen potato sticks into a cardboard box. They’re the real unsung heroes here.

Whether it’s due to years of trial and error, or the roster of food scientists on the payroll spraying potatoes down with 18 additional ingredients—everyone knows McDonald’s fries would be nothing without that signature sodium acid pyrophsphate twang—fast-food restaurants have built fiercely loyal followings based on their fries alone. But, for every story like McD’s, whose fries have remained almost exactly the same for half a century, you have other places like Wendy’s, who are continually reformulating and trying to find their way.

Since we can all hopefully agree that fast-food fries are the best in the world, they deserve to be scrutinized just like all the other best foods in the world—with complete pedantic abandon, until we’ve over-analyzed so much that we wind up resenting them. Cool, so let’s get to it.

Here is a definitive ranking of the best fast-food french fries.

14. Five Guys

Image via Flickr/Quazie

I will never, ever, in my entire life understand why more people don’t roast Five Guys for their bad fries. Maybe the locations I’ve been to are terribly run, or maybe the kid dropping the fries was just extra stoney on every day I’ve been there, but all the fries I’ve eaten from Five Guys have been burnt, soggy, and completely saturated with oil. You could wring out a cup of Five Guys fries and have enough oil to fry a whole new batch. They’re hand-cut, soaked, and double fried in peanut oil, which is the correct route to take, so it must be purely based on human error. But damn do those humans seem to error a whole lot.

13. In-N-Out

Image via Flickr/Aaron Tait

Talking shit on In-N-Out’s fries is like a dog whistle for SoCal residents to see who really knows what’s up. Anyone who claims that ordering them “well-done” can somehow save these single-fried, undersalted, mealy excuses for french fries is either delusional or just really, really dumb. It’s a noble cause to cut the potatoes fresh in the restaurant, and I have nothing but love and respect for their burgers and corporate ethos, but their fries are just plain sad. Kill your idols, I guess.

12. Sonic

Image via Yelp/Joy G.

These are just some good-old-fashioned crappy fries. There’s no single reason either; they’re just bad. They’re weirdly pale, never crispy, and their off-putting mealiness is exacerbated by their thick, stubby shape. They're almost like an elementary school cafeteria fry that was cooked, frozen, cooked again, freezer-burnt, and then cooked until it reached room temp. There’s always a good amount of salt on Sonic’s fries, but no amount of sodium can save them. But, to Sonic’s credit, why would you ever order fries when tater tots are an option?

11. Chick-fil-A

Image via Flickr/Jay Reed

I respect the hell out of any chain that makes waffle fries their standard. I don’t respect a place that manages to fry up the most pale, least crispy fry of all time. It’s a crime against waffle fries, frankly. Chick-fil-A needs to send a corporate training team out to Carl’s Jr. to see how it’s done.

10. KFC

Image via Yelp/Morton F.

Ok, so KFC doesn’t have fries, per se. But they do have seasoned potato wedges, which, semantically speaking, puts them in a grey area. They don’t function like fries exactly—you’re going to have to sacrifice a whole lot of crunchiness—but the nuclear flavor bomb packed into their seasoned batter more than makes up for it. You can scour the ingredients list looking for the secret to that intense savoriness, but deep inside, you always knew it was MSG.

9. Burger King

Image via Getty/Justin Sullivan

The King makes a perfectly fine french fry. It’s not too thick, not too thin, not too salty, and nowhere near under-seasoned. They don’t have skin on them, and there’s no pretense that they are at all "natural." That's why Burger King fries are the ultimate study in how to be average as a french fry—which is not necessarily a strike against them. Average is safe, and safe is sometimes exactly what you need.

8. Steak n' Shake

Image via Yelp/Pink and the B

In theory, I’m against thin-cut fries—all crunch and no potato makes me a sad, fat man—and Steak ‘n Shake has the thinnest fries of any fast-food chain. But they do them relatively well. Not McDonald’s-level well, but, still, more than serviceable. Since they’re protected by a thin sheen of batter, they’re always at least a baseline level of crispy. The standard seasoning isn’t great, possibly because they overcompensate by having flavors like Parmesan Cheese ‘n Herbs available for an upcharge. And never pay an upcharge for fries unless it involves chili and/or liquid cheese.

7. Del Taco

Image via Yelp/Richard L.

Del Taco’s fries and Shake Shack’s fries are almost completely identical. If you took the frozen bag of Del Taco crinkles and dropped them in a Shake Shack fryer, no one would tell the difference. But that’s only part of the equation—consistency and environment are key. At Del Taco, you’re more likely to get soggy fries cooked in old, bitter oil, which automatically demotes them. That said, the ability to throw crinkle cut fries into a chicken soft taco is an intangible that works in Del Taco’s favor.

6. Shake Shack

Image via Yelp/Duy D.

People flipped their shit in 2013 when Shake Shack ditched their mass-produced, frozen, crinkle-cut fries for some natural-cut joints fried in-store. The backlash was apparently too much for the PR to handle, and Shake Shack immediately reverted to their old formula, which is the first indication that these are very important fries. Personally, I think the crinkles add nothing and their popularity is only a reflection of some hipsterrific faux-nostalgia. And I’m docking points for Shake Shack trying to exploit that. But, game still recognizes game. These are perfectly fried to a shattering, golden crisp every time, so much so that each fry has its own structural integrity.

5. Popeyes

Image via Yelp/Eric W.

I want you to do an experiment. Buy a shaker of cajun seasoning from the grocery store—any brand will do—and dust in on every meal you eat for a week. I dare you to tell me it didn’t improve the quality of your life. Or, you could just eat a bunch of Popeyes fries. Same rule applies. They almost qualify as tempura potatoes from the absurdly thick batter, which is kind of a cheat code, but that doesn’t change how objectively delicious they are. It’s hard to rank an aggressively seasoned fry like this any higher though. One key ingredient to a fry’s success is being a good vessel for condiments, and the amount of cayenne does have a tendency to get in the way.

4. McDonald's

Image via Getty/Zhang Peng

I’ve always hated McDonald’s fries for the same reason I’ve always hated the New England Patriots—rooting for the winner is boring. (Also, both Brady and Belichick knew those balls were deflated.) But, like the Pats, McDonald’s fries are infuriatingly good. The level of salt brings you to right to that I-might-get-a-kidney-stone edge, and just as you think it’s going to be too much to handle, a sip of Coke brings your palate back to neutral. They also add “Natural Beef Flavor” to the frying oil, which might be the reason you seem to taste McDonald’s fries hours after you eat them. God bless you, science.

3. Carl's Jr.

Image via Yelp/Chris C.

The quote-unquote natural-cut fries here are a slightly worse version of Wendy’s, but that’s not the fry you should be eating at Carl’s anyways. You’re here for the CrissCut (registered trademark) fries. Their answer to waffle fries get an inflated crunch and flavor boost from seasoned batter, and being able to shove a whole lattice structure of fry into your mouth cuts out the middleman of shoving handfuls of normal fries into your mouth. The unique geometry also creates the perfect vessel for scooping up ketchup or ranch. Definitely go ranch though.

2. Wendy's

Image via Flickr/punctuated

This is the quintessential fast-food fry. Back in 2010, Wendy’s changed their recipe from your standard fast-food matchsticks to a thick-cut, skin-on fry, and they nailed it. It’s the little elegant touches like keeping flecks of skin on the end of the fry that make you forget the fact that you just paid $3.99 for a day’s worth of calories. They’re thick enough to get that dualistic crunch-to-mush factor, and always well-salted.

1. Arby's

Image via Getty/Francis Dean

This was a one-dog race from the start. No one can touch Arby’s in the fry game. Curly fries are criminally underrated, and the roast beef king has them on lock. First, the thin, lacy, heavily seasoned, and spiced batter coating of the fries creates a failsafe crispiness. It doesn’t matter how long they’ve steamed in the to-go bag, the batter is always going to give you that crunch. Second, the curly shape gives you variety. For every pulpy and soft overall coil, you get an extra crispy stand-alone curl. Other chains have adopted the seasoned curly fry, but Arby’s was there from the beginning, and they should get rewarded for it. Bonus point: Arby’s horsey sauce—AKA horseradish aioli (what do words even mean, anyway)—is the perfect fry condiment.

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